


author of the moment

by lunardiaz



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fluff and Humor, It's not short but it's sweet, Jake and Amy live in the same apartment building, Mistaken Identity, Short & Sweet, just kidding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-21 07:26:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13736022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunardiaz/pseuds/lunardiaz
Summary: Someone's following Amy Santiago on the walk back to her apartment and, like any sensible woman, she whips out the pepper spray. Turns out it's her neighbor, Jake, the cute guy upstairs that watches action movies during ungodly hours. Now his eyes feel like burning out of his skull and it's her fault.It's awkward, to say the least.





	author of the moment

Being a college graduate was immensely less exciting than Amy had hoped.

She’d expected a feeling of fulfillment, one of pride, and maybe she’d felt it in the thirty second window that she walked across the stage and received her diploma, but the kickass-college-grad feeling faded as soon as she sat back down.

Amy had expected to feel filled with knowledge, ready to conquer the world. She didn’t, but the paper degree was nice. Her only consolation was that she had an easily destroyable sheet of paper that represented four years of 8ams and term papers and life-consuming stress.

Okay, maybe was a _little_ more bitter than she'd realized. The calligraphic print of her name at the bottom of the page was nice, at least.

Just like any other recent grad hanging around the city with more free time than they know what to do with, Amy Santiago had found herself sitting in a bar with a group of friends. They were here to celebrate the end of formalized education (for some), the end of living in the rent-vacuum known as Brooklyn, and to raise one last cheap beer to the beginning of the real world.

She couldn’t relate to any of that, but no one seemed to care.

Her undergrad was done, true, but she wasn’t leaving Brooklyn anytime soon— she had an summer job lined up as an intern for a literacy group in the borough, plus she’d just renovated the sink in her apartment, so she was feeling pretty committed. (There were hardware store trips made.  _Hardware stores_. In Brooklyn. The only people that went to hardware stores around there were murderers and seriously committed tenants.) College was just a stepping stone to bigger and better Amy, or at least Amy with an actual job.

As she sat pressed up against the brick wall of the bar, squeezed into the end of the booth and nursing a beer that someone else had ordered for her, Amy remembered that she had to finish her application for the police academy by Sunday. This was the plan that was keeping her from the real world.

Becoming a police officer had been her dream since high school. In college, she'd studied art history, which she loved, but she had no plans of working in a museum. Working for the NYPD had always been her goal; her friends and their jobs shouldn't be distracting her from what she wanted. Right?

Amy jotted the reminder down onto a condensation-stained napkin and tucked it into her bag. She sat there for ten or so more minutes, laughing halfheartedly and fiddling with her new class ring that was suddenly feeling like a ball and chain.

Pushing the beer back into the center of the table, she decided it was time to go home. She could get a head start on the application. With the purse slung over her shoulder, and a couple of awkward apologies, Amy squeezed past her friends (and a few stragglers that definitely hadn’t come with the group) and out of the booth. _Oh, I’m just kind of tired! I’m a lightweight, anyway. Yeah, of course I’ll see you soon! Bye, thanks!_

It wasn’t a total lie. She _was_ a lightweight, and she was definitely a little buzzed, but Amy mostly left because she just wasn’t sure how much longer she could listen to people talk about how happy they were that their life is actually beginning.

Amy had convinced herself that graduating college was the start of a new chapter, but it seemed like the next section of _her_ book would be nothing new. School and work. She'd thought that she was happy with this: staying in Brooklyn, going back to school, and working jobs around the city to keep an income. But as the door to the bar slammed shut behind her, the sound of the city traffic drowned out that tiny voice in the back of her head that had been making decisions during the last chunk of her life. Amy realized that maybe she wasn’t as happy with the life that she had ahead of her as she’d originally thought.

* * *

There was no easy way to deal with a semi-drunken semi-existential crisis on a Friday night, but taking a walk sounded like the best option to Amy.

Actually, the main reason she decided to take a walk because she only had a twenty on her person, and she wasn't about to shell out all of her money to a cab. Plus, at midnight, the cabs would be getting gross by now. No way was she going to risk getting into a vomit-filled death trap  _ and  _ blow her cash.

As she’d been deciding whether or not to take a cab, Amy had realized that her phone was dead. Great. Not only did she have to walk home, she would have to do so with a  _ purse _ — which, even though the amount of cash inside was measly and almost downright pathetic, was an easy way to get mugged.

She huffed a little bit as she walked, but she decided that this would be a good way to clear her head. Relaxing had never exactly been Amy Santiago’s  _ thing _ — it’s not that she couldn’t, just that she didn’t want to.

Okay, maybe she couldn’t. Yoga made her feel like everyone was staring at her defective downward dog, meditation just led to her getting lost in thought, thus defeating the entire purpose of the exercise, and breathing exercises did nothing. Maybe a walk would be her saving grace.

Even though it was dark out, it was warm out. She could feel her hair sticking to the skin on her back, the breeze brushing up against her legs. Amy couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn shorts. They just felt  _ impractical _ , but she couldn’t go to a bar in her usual clothes, so they’d been a compromise for the—

No. Nope.  _ See? This doesn’t work. _

Amy refocused herself, pulling her purse over her shoulder. The street of her complex was strangely quiet. There was usually some kind of mayhem going on, whether it be a nearby party or just general noise from the neighbors, but tonight there was just the occasional car passing by and the sound of her footsteps on the pavement.

She was a little surprised that she could hear herself walk. Maybe she just hadn’t been paying attention, but she felt like the sound hadn’t been there since the beginning of the walk. True, the concrete there was wonky, but she was almost sure that these were the quiet wedges...

Nevermind. In a moment of sheer coincidence, Amy happened to glance behind her to see something she almost wished that she hadn’t.

The occasional car, the sound of her footsteps, and the footsteps of whoever was walking behind her. Like, five feet behind her.

Panic alarms immediately went off in Amy’s head, and she could swear that her heart was about to beat out of her chest. Her walking suddenly felt awkward and staged; she  _ had  _ to keep walking or else it would be a total give that she had noticed his presence.

_ Okay _ , she told herself,  _ you’re fine. Think.  _ In the few moments she’d alloted for herself, there were a few different ways that this scenario could pan out.

  1. He could be a robber. From the look she’d gotten, which wasn’t much, but granted it was all she had, he had on dark clothes. In June. Total robber gear.
  2. He could be an innocent guy, just walking home to do whatever or walking to hail a cab and do whatever. Total coincidence. An innocent man with no sense of boundaries.



Amy prided herself in seeing the best in people. As a child, she’d been taught that people were inherently good. Throughout her adult life, she clung to this belief. People really did seem good at the core, and Amy lived her life as such.

They were just a few doors away from her building. Amy was not about to walk into that building. She was just going to hail a cab and that would be that. He was probably harmless, but Amy wasn’t dumb. Even if he  _ was  _ a completely nice guy, she didn’t want him to know where she lived.

But he was fine. Right?  _ You’re just overthinking. You’re fine. He’s fine. _

Amy was about to give the guy behind her the benefit of the doubt when she felt his hand on her shoulder.

Then, just like any reasonable woman would, she pepper-sprayed him in the eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first chapter in a two-part Peraltiago AU. Thank you for reading and feel free to comment what you think! (I like reading criticism/praise/thoughts plus it motivates me to keep writing, ha.)


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